“she’s put on weight, hasn’t she! I won’t tell her that. But she looks good. She looks healthy!”… Not knowing that I was in the room next door, fully able to hear every word she was saying.

Earlier in the day I had a conversation with another woman about being vegetarian. She was quite surprised to hear that I was, informing me that I look like a “healthy” vegetarian… whatever that’s supposed to even mean. Weighty enough? Slim enough? I don’t know. I’ve seen vegetarians of every size.

The words are like bombs going off, only now, they’re a little further off into the distance. The ED voice is there, but small and unsure. It panics, saying, “oh God, you’ve put on so much weight,” and I respond, “yeah, but I’m healthy now,” and it asks me, “but, is that okay?”

The jump from there to here, now, is impossible. Yet here I am, which makes me wonder whether my current state is some sort of denial.

Recently there have been good changes in my life, but to me ‘good’ is fragile, and ‘good’ slips through my fingertips no matter what. It’s not something I’ve ever worked out how to hold onto, just like happiness.

It’s there and then it’s gone. There aren’t varying degrees of either. It just is or it’s not.

I’m walking a tightrope between two extremes.

And all is wobbly.
And all is fragile.
But all is good and I don’t want to rock it too much.